


But I Linger On, Dear

by ThrillingDetectiveTales



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:08:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThrillingDetectiveTales/pseuds/ThrillingDetectiveTales
Summary: Memories of Bastogne stick around even after George is home from the frontlines. Luckily, Joe does too.
Relationships: George Luz/Joseph Toye
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47
Collections: DDSherman Holiday Exchange for BoB 2019





	But I Linger On, Dear

**Author's Note:**

  * For [IronPunk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/IronPunk/gifts).



> Full notes to come after reveal. For now, recipient, I hope you like it.

“Where are we going?” George asked. His voice was loud in the still air, ringing off the spindly black firs. The distant form of Joe Toye didn’t answer, just kept picking his way carefully through the snow, hands in his coat pockets and head ducked against the cold.

“Joe?” George tried again. “Hey, Joe! Where’re we going?”

The Bois Jacques loomed silent all around them, made endless where the flat grey sky fell seamlessly over the frozen horizon in a curtain of winter mist. Joe kept walking, so George picked up to a jog, snow crunching under his boots. He couldn’t remember why they were here—in the Bois Jacques, sure, that was all Hitler’s doing, but why they were tromping through this part of the glacial forest, specifically. He didn’t think they were on an assignment. They snuck away, sometimes. Not often and never for very long, but that was usually a markedly less somber affair, comprised of much affectionate ribbing and affording very little by way of personal space.

“Joe!” George called. Joe must’ve been walking faster than he thought, because George still hadn’t managed to close the distance between them. He grinned, raising one gloved hand to his mouth, and hollered, “Hey, Joe! You gone deaf or what?”

Joe paused for a second, tilting his head up but not turning quite far enough to peer back over his shoulder to where George was hurrying toward him. A thin, high whistle warbled weakly through the air and dread flooded up through George’s belly in a frigid geyser.

“Joe!” he cried again, breaking into a flat out run. “Joe, get down!”

The first shell hit a few feet ahead of George and to the left, sending up a spray of dirt and ice and vicious splinters. It was louder than George expected it to be, and the ground under his feet pitched and rocked with the impact, toppling him to his knees. He scrabbled at the dirt, trying to push himself up as another whistle, then another, and another rose overhead in a ghastly chorus. Joe kept on walking at that same placid pace, utterly unperturbed, as though he hadn’t noticed the world splintering apart at his back.

“Joe!” George’s voice was hoarse, breaking in the middle where desperation turned it brittle and jagged. “Joe, get down! Get down!”

Another shell hit, this time to his right, and the ground buckled again. George fell gracelessly to his face in the snow and wrapped his arms over his head as a shower of detritus rained down on him, cold and wet and awful. His ears were ringing and when he lifted his head there were bright white spots blotting his vision out in places. 

Joe was still walking. George wormed his way along the forest floor, dragging his belly through the bed of frozen pine needles and icy dirt. “Get down! Get down you stupid son of a bitch, come on!”

He couldn’t hear for the whistling now, which had risen to a cacophonous shriek. The whole world was dissolving into a tangle of hissing artillery flares and dancing shrapnel. Joe kept plodding along, figure obscured in fits by the red flash of shell bursts, the rolling waves of mist and smoke. George reached out for him—foolishly, hopelessly—as the bombardment crescendoed to a percussive finale.

“Joe!” he hollered, though he couldn’t even hear his own voice over the unholy din. “Joe!”

George sat up in bed.

He was breathing fit for a blacksmith’s bellows, chest heaving as he gasped into the Pennsylvania gloom. There was a thin beam of light from a streetlamp outside cutting a grimy yellow wedge into the dark, the edges of it shifting and warping with the occasional rustle of the curtain where the window was propped open at the bottom. George was sticky with flop sweat from his hairline to the soles of his feet and even the tepid breeze made him shiver.

Beside him, Joe stirred irritably to wakefulness, shuffling over to grope clumsily for George’s side and mumbling, “‘samatter?”

George took a careful, rattling breath, licked his dry lips and gave his head a slow shake. “Nothin’,” he croaked, raising a hand to run his fingers gingerly through Joe’s hair, from temple to nape. It was sticking up on one side like one of those tropical birds. Joe made a soft, pleased noise and butted into the contact. George felt himself smile despite the lingering roil in his stomach and promised quietly, “It’s nothin’, Joe. Go back to sleep.”

“Bullshit, s’nothin’,” Joe grumbled. He slipped an arm over George’s waist, splaying his hand out just below George’s sternum and drawing his thumb in an absent, affectionate line across the lowest rung of George’s ribs. George’s breath, already half-stuck in the fear-tight column of his throat, caught and fixed itself for real at the familiar, calloused drag. “Bad dream?”

George swallowed. He thought about denying it. He had mostly been sleeping better since four months ago when he caught the train to Reading and delivered himself, unannounced, to Joe’s doorstep, but the past was turning out to be a tricky thing to shake. 

“Yeah,” he confessed, because Joe undoubtedly already knew and had only been asking the question as a formality to respect George’s personal privacy. George didn’t know why he bothered, as George had rarely exhibited similar restraint when butting into Joe’s business. It must’ve been the correct response, anyway, since the second the word hit the air, something that had been strung taut across the breadth of George’s shoulders snapped and dissolved into the shadowed night.

Joe hummed his acknowledgement and turned his face into George’s hip. They were both sleeping naked as a concession to the late summer heatwave and Joe was warm and wonderful in every place they touched.

“We’re alright,” Joe assured. His voice was a sleep-rough rasp, breath a hot gust against George’s skin. He pressed a sloppy kiss to George’s side and gave his chest an affectionate pat. “Made it out okay.”

“I know we did,” George agreed. He ran his fingers through Joe’s hair again, just to watch the way his eyelids fluttered and catalogue the sweet, satiated curl of his mouth. He brushed his thumb over Joe’s cheek and amended, “Most of us, anyway.”

“Leg joke,” Joe snorted and rolled onto his back. “Never gets old.” He took one arm with him but replaced it almost immediately with the other, letting it flop back so his hand was laying palm-up against George’s thigh. He bumped his knuckles there a couple of times—almost like he was knocking on a door though markedly more gently than normal—and cracked his eyes open just enough to peer over at George through the dark. “You want to lay back down or you planning to brood for the rest of the night?”

“That depends.” George reached down to tangle their fingers loosely together and Joe responded with a squeeze. “You gonna make it worth my while?”

Joe’s grin was a soft white crescent punctuated on either side by dimpled shadows. It dropped into the pit of George’s belly like a firecracker.

“Come on down here and find out,” he invited, and George went.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] But I Linger On, Dear](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27578252) by [Podfics by Isabelle (isabellerecs)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isabellerecs/pseuds/Podfics%20by%20Isabelle)




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